“The re­sponses re­gard­ing the over­all fes­ti­val ex­pe­ri­ence are very grat­i­fy­ing and re­in­force our view that coun­cil, and its sup­port­ers like Friends of the Fes­ti­val, are man­ag­ing to keep the event fresh and rel­e­vant.

“Dur­ing our fes­ti­val de­brief we did iden­tify some ar­eas where im­prove­ments can be made. More prom­i­nent di­rec­tions to toi­let fa­cil­i­ties was among is­sues raised.

“On the pos­i­tive side the un­der­cover seat­ing and eat­ing area ad­ja­cent to the Cres­cent St stage drew many favourable com­ments as did the range of ad­di­tional fes­ti­val at­trac­tions of­fered.

“Park­ing is nor­mally raised as an is­sue but this year our new sig­nage re­sulted in the Childers Show­grounds be­ing full for the first time.

“We also had Red Col­lar Res­cue in at­ten­dance at the show­grounds and they pro­vided pet mind­ing ser­vices for 37 dogs.”

Cr Peters said it was sig­nif­i­cant that 97% of stall­hold­ers sur­veyed in­di­cated they would be in­ter­ested in returning for the fes­ti­val in 2017.

“It was also ev­i­dent that our per­form­ers en­joyed the op­por­tu­nity to bring their tal­ents to the Childers Fes­ti­val as many have in­di­cated they would like to be in­vited back next year,” Cr Peters said.

“We do cast a wide net from which to draw our en­ter­tain­ment and this year we had par­tic­i­pants from By­ron Bay, Gold Coast hin­ter­land and even one from Tai­wan.”

Cr Peters said she was look­ing for­ward to fur­ther in­put from Friends of the Fes­ti­val, a Childers based group that has con­sis­tently pro­vided novel and in­no­va­tive ideas to add to the fes­ti­val pro­gram.

“The very suc­cess­ful Isis Cen­tral Mill Cane Fire Tours and guided His­tor­i­cal Tours have been ini­tia­tives of this group,” she said.

SUC­CESS: Michelle Har­ris and Lau­ren White­house at The Childers Fes­ti­val.